I will take the win!

January 21, 2023

The factory looked like the house right before aSuper Bowl party, that my parents have hosted for many years... Empty. Clean. Waiting. The floor, not spotless but swept. Normally messy tables were cleared and the corners full of things organized neatly. The air feels like anticipation. That’s what it felt like before the Zambia Revenue Authority came to the factory... or was supposed to come.

The past couple of weeks, I’ve been working on applying to the ZRA to obtain a Country of Origin Certificate for our 7 types of soap. I thought it would be easy. Just submit a letter and get the certificate… but no. It involves a letter, invoices from all materials required including factory overhead, customs clearances for anything imported, documentation of production, and a cost analysis for every single soap.

We first applied for it in the middle of December. The hardest part of it all was collecting the invoices and clearances because, there has been no system for storing the invoices outside of Riverside’s main office, which houses at least 10 different departments. Some of the invoices required came from as far back as 2020. After a couple weeks of searching… and me repeatedly asking for the invoices, we had it all together. Isaac went in and delivered it to the correct department and we got a reply on the 22nd of December. Well, at least my spam box got a response.

So, Isaac went in on the 4th of January after ZRA's normal business hours resumed. He found their response at the front desk and that they required more documents. Again, I went and found more documents that they hadn’t included in their original list, like water, electricity, and labor expenses. They also wanted something different with the cost analysis. So, I did my best to fix it to what I thought they were asking for.

Early in the morning, before Isaac left for the third time, I got up and printed everything out. Roughly 40 pages of documents and information. I went to the factory, picked him up and we headed out towards where he would get picked up by the bus to head into Lusaka. And then we turned around, because he had forgotten the folder with all the documentation...eventually he was on his way.

At lunch I got a WhatsApp voice message saying, that what we submitted wasn’t right. We needed a new tax certificate, because the other one had expired thanks to the new year. We also need to follow the exact template that they had provided for the cost analysis. While mine was perfectly compact, they wanted a larger, less detailed version, with each soap on separate pages. They also wanted a change in the currency. We’ve purchased products in USD, Kwacha and Rand, so finding one currency seemed very confusing. I worked through lunch to try and solve all of the issues and by the end of it I felt accomplished and a little worn out.

Three days later, we got a call saying they were ready to come and inspect the factory! Finally, something moving and happening! They said they would come the next week, but then the next day we got a call saying they were coming today! So we changed our plans and prepared to receive them… they didn’t come. I’m still counting it as a win, though we are still waiting for their visit to our factory.

On another good note, we should soon be getting solar panels for the factory. Last summer one of the Akuna team members and future Project Manager for Enactus (at Southern) wrote a submission for a grant. That submission ended up winning and earning us $8,000 to use for solar panels. Recently, Zambia has been experiencing heavy load shedding (scheduled power outages). For the last month it has gotten to be the norm, going out everyday around 4-6 and turning back on around 10:30. Power also goes out when it rains… which does happen a lot during rainy season… so these solar panels will be fantastic. They are scheduled to come soon, but Africa soon is generally a little different than American soon. Solar energy should also improve our margins for production as well! So double win!

Some more exciting news is the arrival of 6 Buffalo bikes! One for Akuna, one for the primary school and four for the secondary school. These bikes will save countless hours of walking and make management go more smoothly. I know for Akuna it will allow us to stay more cost efficient by avoiding using the car, and more specifically will allow Isaac, the production manager, to come back and forth between the Akuna building and the administration building. The walk takes about 30 minutes one way, so it will save an hour of time! It will also be beneficial to have when we communicate with the school, as we sponsor them in many programs. As soon as they’ve been approved to use, I will be posting pictures. Thank you so much to those who helped support the funding of these bikes.

And to my church family at home and across the US. Thank you so much for the notes and little gifts. It means so much to me to open that envelope and pull out a new message of encouragement. If you’ve been following along you know how hard it’s been. But during rough days, these little notes have made it so much easier. There is something so incredibly comforting to know that there is a huge group of people supporting me from home and that if I ever needed anything you would be there for me. You are my tribe, my people, my family, and I couldn’t do this without you. Thank you again!